From 1753 to 1755, the Reverend Samuel Davies of Hanover County, Virginia, traveled in England and Scotland on a fundraising mission in behalf of the Trustees of the College of New Jersey. He also used his trip as a attempt to ease the pressures on religious non-conformists in Virginia, to raise funds for Indian missions, and to secure book donations for his own educational activities in Hanover County.
Samuel Davies (1723 - 1761)
Presbyterian preacher in colonial British America who defended religious dissent and helped lead the Southern phase of the religious revival known as the Great Awakening. Davies was educated at Samuel Blair’s “log college” at Fagg’s Manor, Pa., and was ordained in 1747. His work during the Great Awakening centred at Hanover, Va.; in Virginia, where Presbyterians were persecuted as Nonconformists by the established church leaders, he became a chief defender of the Dissenters. He argued their cause before the Virginia general court and enlisted the support of prominent English and Scottish Dissenters. The government’s preoccupations after the outbreak of the French and Indian War (1754), however, diminished concern over Davies, especially when his war sermons helped rouse Virginians to defend the frontier.Davies further enhanced his reputation as the outstanding preacher of his day by sermons given in England and Scotland during a trip with the evangelist Gilbert Tennent. Soon after his return Davies became the first moderator of the first presbytery of Virginia, Hanover, in 1755. On the same trip Davies raised funds in England for the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and was its fourth president from 1759 until his death.
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